A Fresh Start: 1st Haircut, 1st Potty & Bye-Bye Bottles

Before we took down the Christmas tree, Max realized this would be Sunny's 1st and only opportunity to lay in it. So he stuck her on a big branch, and she clung on for a moment before asking "Down, please?!" Had to try it.

I followed Omi's recipe on New Year's Day, and we had Dutch Baby for breakfast with powdered sugar, blueberries and lemon juice on top. New tradition! Even Sun-Kitty wanted to eat it. I think Sunny only ate about 6 berries and one tiny bite of pancake.

The eating went a little better at the Cricket Cafe a day later. Uncle Scott even taught Sunny how to use a straw. So the world is pretty much her oyster these days.

Sunny teaching fancy fingers sign language to Uncle Scott, whom she now calls, "Uncle Dot," for fun.

"Put jacket on, Mama. Going outside. Too little!" Sunny always gets "too big" and "too little" backwards - maybe because she's speaking about herself - SHE's too little for the jacket? I assume she's got it all figured out, because she has frequent genius moments. I know everyone thinks their kid is above average, but...well, here's an example:

The other day, she noticed this jar of pickles at the other end of the table. "Look, motorboat on the waves and people! I see a girl!" Seriously - Max and I were astonished that she noticed these tiny details on a label 4 feet away, and that she has the interest and vocab to share about it! On her pediatrician report, it said that "by now your child should know 4-10 words and be able to put 2 words together." Check.

Max took this picture as Sunny was requesting, "More toys, please." She has it all, this one.

We had an amazing dinner at the Yeck's house, and Sunny's favorite part of the night was pushing Brooklyn in the stroller. Brooklyn loved it, too. Max and I were astounded by how well Brooklyn eats. We couldn't keep our eyes off of her as she ate all kinds of foods and kept asking for more...and then we couldn't stop talking about it afterward. Sunny had 2 bites and said, "Ok, all done, down please." The lobster and risotto that Tyson cooked up were incredible, but Brooklyn's appetite made the biggest impression on us that night. So we came home more determined than ever to find a way to get Sunny to eat well. She was still enjoying three 8-oz bottles of whole milk a day, plus a whole avocado that we'd shove into her mouth while she played in her evening bath...distraction really helped. Apparently, Sunny had decided the avo and milk were a great plan - she didn't consistently eat much else. We needed a big change.

Sunny got a sticker for her 1st successful pee-pee in the potty. She then smiled and threw her sticker into the pee. She's had another successful potty-use since.

I love seeing Max's silly crooked smile on Sunny's face. After her doctor's appointment, Sunny woke from her nap requesting ice cream, so we went to the ice cream shop and had 4 flavors. Strawberry was her favorite - it made the shots all better. At least she eats ice cream...but seriously, her "eating thing" was getting harder and harder for us.

Sharing our frustration with Sunny's disinterest in eating, Nauntie suggested we have a "bye-bye bottle party." So on Saturday we gathered some plush toy "witnesses," fired up the video camera, and made much to-do about Sunny being a big girl, and big girls don't need bottles. Then she said good-bye to three bottles and tossed them (symbolically - we'll donate them) into the trash. She quit her bottles cold turkey. No fussing at all. And since that morning (5 days ago), she hasn't asked for a bottle or relied on milk for her calories. She doesn't need a bottle at nap time or bed time, and she sleeps through the night from 7 pm to 7 am with no "dream feeding." She's even eaten entire bowls of various foods, and happily sat at the table with Nauntie, Daddy and me for 40 minutes the other night, eating everything we shared with her. Wow. It's a whole new world when you're not worried about your kid getting enough to eat. Nauntie's excellent ideas and compassionate parenting skills regularly help us out - but this success is HUGE!!!! Sunny is so easy and fun - the only thing about her behavior that's ever really challenged us was eating - and now she's a champ at that, too. Amazing.

Rockin' some wild hair - Sunny's fair hair is thick and a bit coarse, just like Daddy's. So it should hold the craziest do's rather well. Watch out world, if the perm ever comes back.

Speaking of crazy do's, we'd all had enough of the party-in-the-back baby mullet. Sunny was looking a bit "bedraggled," as Popo and I had said, in unison. So Max and I took her to Kid's Castle Cuts, where she drove a pink jeep while she got her first trim. Only about 1.5 inches came off the back, but it sure improved her style. I saved the tiny curls, of course.

Sunny really liked the salon's cool chairs and toys when we first arrived.

She stayed cooperative as Kim the stylist started combing her hair...

And then she started her "wax off," arm waving and blocking when the scissors came out. So Max and I took turns distracting her and pinning her arms down. She squirmed and said, "No!" several times, but she didn't cry. She even allowed Kim to pop in a tiny topknot, which made Sunny look so much older to us.

While she enjoyed the toys at the salon post-haircut, Sunny heard a smaller boy crying over by the chairs. His dad was busy paying at the register. Sunny hurried over to him, patted his back to comfort him, and said, "look, car chairs, wow!" to distract and cheer him up. Max and I had never been prouder of her. What a sweetie.

I gave Sunny another topknot for our zoo visit on MLK Day - as long as she doesn't know it's up there, she doesnt mind it much. This picture shows that the trimmed-up mullet is now more of a pixie cut with little curls - I love the tiny topknot showing in her shadow on the right.

I thought fingerpainting would be a fun, messy hit with Sunny, so I got us both in the dry bath tub with lots of paint and paper. But the only willing artists turned out to be me and Max. Sunny did about 5 single finger prints on the wall (none on the paper), but I think those were accidental as she pointed to our pictures. We want her to enjoy getting dirty, so we'll need to try again, or buy some jello pudding to play with, or...something.

Sunny liked holding the paint containers and passing them around. I colored our noses, hoping that this "mess" would show Sunny it's ok to go wild. She remained reluctant to touch the paint.

But banging spoons against the shower was loud and fun.

We've put carpet in our living room today so Sunny has a soft & cozy public space to enjoy. Initially, I'd rejected the idea - I was mainly scared about my allergies getting worse and reluctant to hide the pretty and easy-to-clean hardwood floor. But now that I've seen the joy on Sunny's face as she plays on the carpet, it's totally worth it. You were right, Max.

Sunny hammered her pegs while the carpet team hammered in the tack strips.

Sunny ran around and around the open, soft floor, shrieking with happiness, when it was all done. I don't know if I have the heart to move the furniture back into place, especially since she's stuck inside so much during the winter. We've been taking her to the big malls so she has lots of warm, dry space to explore. Plus she loves the people-watching there. This is the joy I was talking about...

One of Nauntie's and my favorite things to do growing up was what we called "floor time." It was when Grandpa and Grandma got down on the carpet with us to play, read books, soak up the warmth of the fireplace, or just hang out. Now there's more fun floor time ahead in THIS house.